The National Hispanic Media Coalition and the National Latino Media Council announced plans Tuesday to target Paramount Pictures for what they call a lack of Latino actors, writers, and directors.
NHMC and NLMC are asking the public to join them in a series of actions to be taken against Paramount, including a social media campaign and demonstrations nationwide until they sign a memorandum of understanding with the two organizations “detailing how they plan to solve their Latino exclusion problem,” according to a statement.
Alex Nogales, President & CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, said that “Latinos can no longer wait for the film companies to, as they say, bring us into their films `organically’.”
“Latinos must be part and parcel of the film industry. The talent is there and as a community, we need the positive stories and sensitivity of our actors, writers, and directors to counter the anti-Latino rhetoric and actions of the Trump administration who has influenced a large portion of the population to look at us as the dregs of society,” he said.
Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, who spoke at the same Pasadena news conference as Nogales, said that “with only 2.7 percent of Latinos being in films in 2016, according to a report from UCLA’s Bunche Center, the lack of representation of Latinos by the film studios is an embarrassment and a disservice to our community.
“The unfair portrayal of our community paired with our current political climate is putting us at harm to how the world sees us. It’s time for Latinos to be included, time for people outside our community to see what makes the Latino community truly great.”
Added Thomas A. Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and NLMC chair: “Severe underrepresentation in media — to the point of near total exclusion — of any significant community has real consequences, including encouraging unscrupulous political demagogues to target the excluded community in campaigns and rhetoric,” he said.
“The Latino community understands these consequences and will hold the media companies with the worst records of underrepresentation accountable for their complicity in the denial of civil rights to the Latino community, the nation’s largest minority group.”
Brenda Victoria Castillo, President & CEO-Elect of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, said that “We are more than 57 million people in the United States with a purchasing power of more than 1.5 trillion dollars. Latinos purchase 24 percent of all tickets sold at the box office. That’s REAL power!
“Do not be compliant and accepting of the way the film studios discriminate against us Latinos. Resist the way Hollywood depicts us in negative stereotypes. Rise Up, Stay Woke, and Take Action!”